Canvas
by Ruse
Summary: A portrait of the soul of Severus Snape. Oneshot. Was just listening to music and thinking thoughts, so I thought I'd let them wander where they would. Warning: Dark.


**Canvas**

Simple midnight ramblings, a picture of the light and darkness of Severus Snape. The Harry Potter universe belongs to JK Rowling. I make no money.

xxx

His life was a canvas dressed in shades of black, back dropped by the night and brushed by tears forged of ebon rain. The shining white, unpainted places in the threads of his fate had been masked early on as if wine had been carelessly thrown and allowed to run. Formless shadows danced in the shards of broken, fire-blackened mirrors that reflected every truth he had ever wanted to hide from. Eyes of blue, eyes of green, of red and deepest black taunted him from cobwebs in corners he had sought so long to forget, windows to the shreds of a ruined starscape outside. Where light touched this painting of his life it scarred him like the feeding of a searing flame, insatiable and thirsty for his blood. Oh, but the light was so beautiful. So achingly beautiful.

Dark were the thoughts of Severus Snape as he stood at the window in a room warmed by a single candle and his breath. He had never been afraid of the dark, even as a child, as if born of it. Hogwarts was quiet this night and the landscape he had viewed almost all his life trickled with mists spilling down hills, stealing around trees. The imagery reminded him of the time that was running out, for surely as he stood the very shadows stole around the life of everyone he had known, waiting and whispering, breathing death into their lungs as a silent killer. His arm high on the sill, he wrapped his fingers along the drapery as the sun's departure bathed the world in the glory of a night that promised no moon or stars would shine.

His other hand bore a lighter burden, gentle as a kiss and ever as beloved, but his black gaze was trained upon the horizon. Yes, his time was running out. He could have closed his eyes, could have thought back over a life lived on two sides of the coin. He could have imagined what might have been.

Severus instead watched two children, a Ravenclaw girl and Hufflepuff boy, hand in hand as they retired from the grounds for the night lest they be caught for evading curfew. Such small joys they took, even in the face of death and destruction so near. There had been a time when he had been that oblivious to the truth of the universe. He had been abused by his father, ignored by his mother, tormented by the students he could never have allowed himself to trust regardless. Yet even that ignorance had been bliss. That was when the painting had begun to darken. Strokes with paint black as night left him angry, grays gentler but still fashioned from pain.

The blood on this frayed work of art had been in the form of longing so desperate, so achingly terrible in its power that he thought he might drown. Flower petals of white had cascaded through the river of red that poured from his heart. They were the petals of a lily, perfectly shaped, swathed in the scent of Heaven itself. Where had such kindness been formed, he wondered? For all the terror in this world, for all the hate and sorrow, there yet existed, however briefly, something pure. It had broken through the darkness, broken through the blood and shone into every corner of his mind, every place inside him that had felt as if it died, exposing every dirty secret, every lie, every greedy and selfish act.

And instead of withering, instead of turning away, that pure lily had reached for him and touched him with love, with forgiveness. That touch had left his soul screaming, a pale shaft of light painted from the black floor to stars far away, but still visible and able to damage him with their ultra white rays. When that lily had been crushed, the spell had ended and the painting had gone black. The night Voldemort had gone to face his foe, small and fragile, was the night Severus had been destroyed. He could still feel that place inside him where the petals had washed away, could feel keenly the absence and that she was forever unreachable now renewed the wailing of his soul, made every drop of longing that fell along the devastated canvas seem like death.

Now Severus did close his eyes, bathed naked in the light once more, only this time it could not touch him. He had loved her, he had loved her on levels he had never imagined a being could love. She was everything he wanted, everything he wanted to be but could never. He was no stranger to the recognition that compared with such kindness and such wonder he was not even whisper in time. Yet when she looked at him, monster that he was, he had seen more than whispers reflected back at him. He had seen himself as he could be, beautiful, beloved, pure.

A sharp breath caught in his throat. Severus ran his hand along his lips as if to contain his voice from revealing too much to the shadows. His eyes shimmered in the pale, sickly light of a moon obscured by clouds. In tired fantasies on the battlefield he had often imagined her arms around him, welcoming him into the night. Yet the longer he had lived without that light, the more damaged he had become. He didn't deserve it. He had done nothing to deserve the peace he so wanted, _or so he imagined_. Not because she did not love him, but because he had loved her. He had wanted to be what she had always seen inside of him, he wanted to feel unashamed of the kindness in her knowing, angel's gaze.

The light was still damaging him, burning his soul to a cinder. He no longer wished for death to join her, but wished he had never existed that he could never have known the beauty and light that felt so far, so untouchable. Peace in oblivion, in simply not being seemed his only hope. Because to want was to hurt, and he felt he could never become the beautiful creature that deserved what he so desired. Truth. Love untainted by selfishness. Compassion without measure, forgiveness given without reserve.

Grave gave these things freely, else she would never have looked at him twice. Yet he could not find himself worthy, and for that could not imagine his soul in any state but longing. He almost hated the light for having touched him, for having taught him the nature of humanity, showing him the both the most beautiful aspects of the universe and the most hideous. For breaking him of the innocence of being unaware of good and evil. He almost hated the light even as he loved it more than life itself.

Time was running out. He gently reached forward and placed the lily in his hand on the window sill for the moon's rays to nourish. He thought didn't deserve peace, he desired neither hell nor purgatory. But he would do what he could against the ultimate darkness.

He would give her son the sword to slay the serpent and the painting would be complete with one great stroke of white that maybe, just maybe would earn him the grace he so longed for.

_xxxFinite Incantatumxxx_


End file.
